Should Canada spend 50 times more on war than refugees?

‘Tis the season when Canadians tend to think more of those who have less.

The Christmas season typically inspires many Canadians to reflect on their values, particularly the universal principle of charity, which can cause us to lend an extra hand to those who are suffering largely through no fault of their own.

But as more Canadians feel financially squeezed and complain about paying taxes, I suspect fewer at this time of the year think about the planet’s 10 million refugees — even though their struggles raise difficult questions about Canadians’ commitment to compassion.

What does Canada do for the victims of global conflicts, those desperate to escape religious, ethnic and political persecution?

Through the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, Canada has officially accepted hundreds of thousands of government-assisted refugees since the 1950s, mostly liberating them from grimy, unhealthy, makeshift camps.

The refugees typically arrive in Canada a few years after an international conflict, often one involving western military forces, whether in Vietnam, Central America, the former Yugoslavia, Uganda, Myanmar, Somalia, Iraq or Afghanistan.

Life has never been easy for the frequently poor, often-illiterate people who are given refuge in Canada, particularly as they settle in to enclaves for support and try to learn English or French.

This week’s Vancouver Sun series has shown how government-assisted refugees settle into specific neighbourhoods and, especially in their early years, mostly survive on welfare, food banks, second-hand clothing donations, church charity, social services — and, if they’re fortunate, a minimum-wage job.

That has become an even more pronounced trend since 2002, when Canada, after being criticized for taking the “cream of the crop” of refugees, switched its policy to lend a hand to refugees in the direst straits.

Polls consistently show Canadians proudly think of themselves as international humanitarians.

But the relatively few Canadians who are aware of the dilemma of government-assisted refugees question whether we are doing enough.

They point out that Canada’s refugee-resettlement budget remains stagnant, at $54 million a year.

At the same time, our military budget has mushroomed to $2.4 billion a year. In other words, Ottawa spends roughly one-fiftieth of its military budget on assisting refugees in this country.

To be fair, that ratio is not much different from that of many other wealthy countries.

But is it a financial ratio Canadians are satisfied with as we seek to act on our global responsibilities?

For instance, Canadian troops are no longer seriously involved in United Nations peacekeeping missions, with Ottawa having, in recent years, chosen more direct-combat roles.

Paradoxically, much of our military budget is now funnelled toward a much questioned continuing war in Afghanistan, the country that is the world’s largest source of refugees, including to Canada.

In addition, Canada continues to take only a tiny fraction of the world’s refugees. The vast majority of the planet’s exiles end up some day returning to their homelands, or trying to eke out an existence in a neighbouring country.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning United Nations High Commission on Refugees, however, organizes the resettlement of about 110,000 refugees each year.

About 80,000 of them go to the United States, to the surprise of those who think the U.S. puts virtually all its resources into its massive military spending.

Aus t r a l i a , me anwhi l e , accepts about 15,000 government-assisted refugees a year, Canada about 8,000 and Norway and Sweden about 1,500 each. Other European countries take lower quotas.

Whether or not Canadians seriously re-examine the amount Ottawa spends each year on our military with an eye to increasing refugee-resettlement funding, many other chronic issues cry out for reform.

New refugees from war-torn Iraq, victims of invasion and its repercussions.

Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts and her council have been leaders on one of them. They’ve called on Ottawa to stop requiring refugees to repay their airfares to Canada — the only refugee-welcoming nation with such a practice.

As the Sun series showed, the pressure on refugees to repay the loan — with interest — is devastating for most of those arriving from Myanmar, Somalia, Bhutan, Iraq and dozens of other countries as they strive to make a go of it in Canada.

But the loan-repayment rule is not the only problem. Several made-in-B. C. policies make things especially difficult for the roughly 800 refugees who come to this province each year.

Those who support refugees often cite how difficult it is for these newcomers to get ahead in a province with the highest rental costs in Canada, the lowest minimum wage, one of the lowest welfare rates and the highest incidence of child poverty.

It’s worth remembering that government-assisted refugees are specifically invited to Canada, unlike asylum seekers, who, rightly or wrongly, show up at our borders and airports and then ask for refugee status.

Yet, despite officially being committed to giving some of the world’s most persecuted a fresh start, many of our policies conspire to erase refugees’ potential opportunities — not to mention the hopes of all others struggling below the poverty line.

It raises a contradiction: Why are we allowing politicians to put so many roadblocks in the way of the long-suffering government-assisted refugees we’ve formally welcomed to try to begin a new life in Canada?

It would not be a bad thing if the cries of the world’s refugees encouraged Canadians, especially British Columbians, to ask: Are we yet the humanitarian nation we want to be?

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